The most important thing to do for every minister and servant of God is as Jesus reaffirmed,

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22:37-39 ESV)

If we move the commandment which is to be found in the second place to the first place, we will surely fail. Although both commandments count as equal, we may never forget that obeying the great commandment alone empowers us to love our neighbors with that love we received from God before (Rom 5:5). Also, if we drop the first commandment and try to love others (or ourselves) on our own, we will be frustrated because of not being able to love anyone including ourselves.

Our relationship with God, sustained through continual prayer (1 Thes 5:17 ESV) is of the utmost importance if we want to do God’s will all the time, that is, if we want to serve and love others as Christ did. However, it is not an automatism to live in His presence; our Lord wants to be sought.

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:12-13 ESV)

Furthermore, if we want to really serve God by preaching the gospel to those whom God wants to reach, we must necessarily be qualified to love everyone. Since we cannot succeed in loving unconditionally (agape) without having been empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so, our preaching and evangelism will be as effectual as the power of the Holy Spirit which we have already received. One might also say that our preaching reveals the touchstone God applies to our lives as well, for it is written,

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Mt 7:1-5 ESV)

Great preachers over the centuries were always both Spirit-filled and lived out what they preached. There was no difference between the man on the pulpit and the husband at home. Such a life springs from Christ’s life pouring itself out of the preacher’s heart toward all those who listen to him. It is not necessary to spend hours with preparing a sermon when the Lord Himself pours out His Spirit on you so that your mind is completely emptied of your own reasonings until it has been refilled by God with that particular message He wants to be preached. It seems that the apostle Paul knew how it works since he said,

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:1-5 ESV)

Actually, why did Paul say that he knew nothing but Christ crucified? Sometimes people tend to think that they ought to preach the cross and nothing else. In my humble opinion which springs from my own experience, I’d argue Paul meant that he had been quasi empty-minded so that God – through His Spirit – could put into his heart and mind whatever He wished. In fact, it is ALWAYS the power of God’s Spirit which reaches human hearts through preaching (even in written form – only). Often times, particularly when people are contrite in spirit and broken-hearted, God gives grace through the preacher; those words then are more pleasing to the ear. However, in case there are religious hypocrites who listen to such a preacher, God’s Spirit will rather fill the preacher with a harsh and even mocking message in order to bring them to repentance (cf. Jesus’ words in Mt 23:13-39, for example).

In order to make a long story shorter, I’d like to point to the neglected importance of prayer which enables us to speak directly from God’s heart. Regarding this issue, the Lord urged me to write an exhortation in form of a poem which I – as an exception – decided to post on here instead of publishing it on my other blog “Susanne Schuberth’s Poetry” [if you like, see susanneschuberth.wordpress.com].

PLEASE PRAY AND PREACH

A preacher who did never pray Would surely not have much to say But platitudes and human stuff Of such bullshit we had enough

No yes-man and no moralist No self-made man evangelist No loveless grumpy chatterbox No faceless coward and no ox

Who’s drawn by selfishness and fame To play that ugly demon’s game A man who thinks that dark is light And trusts in reason’s fooling might

With these tin soldiers, we’re fed up Up to the brim they filled the cup For all those hungry, thirsting souls Who do not know what are their goals

If all those preachers don’t repent Their preaching will come to an end God doesn’t need such lifeless talk He needs a man who shares His walk

Down on his knees he’ll hear His voice That softly shuts out all that noise Which springs from human worrying And fear, and pain, and earthly thing

The Lord alone knows how to preach And that our hearts are out of reach Whenever shallow talk comes up In churchly social gospel club

Please, pray, and preach as you are led After your soul by God was fed With divine wisdom and His sword That lifts men up who know the Lord

Discernment and compassionateness Will help you bring to end all mess And finally all men will see This is a man with Heaven’s key

Dear reader, feel free to weigh in and add your own thoughts so that the Body of Christ may build itself up – in love (Eph 4:16). Every commenter is welcome on my blog, that means, Christians as well as non-Christians. I will try to reply to you as the Lord leads me and I am curious to know what God is speaking through you. The only things I do not like are when someone attacks God and utters blasphemous statements or when others (esp. commenters) are being attacked. Furthermore, I am going to delete comments which flood my blogs without any reference to my articles or poems or to the replies of other commenters on here. Thank you for your understanding!

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24 thoughts on “Prayer, preaching, and love – do they belong together?”

Will you please plead for me to have faith that overcomes the world? For hatred of sin and eyes to see Jesus as a priceless treasure? For protection from believing I cannot/will not? For repentant faith? Thank you

Of course, I have been praying for you. And I do hope that you don’t feel guilty when you realize that you “cannot/will not” – whatever. Actually, I could not count how often I thought, “Lord, I can’t do this and I don’t want to do that. If you don’t help me now, everything will remain the same.” For us humans it is not that comfortable to always ask for God’s help (I’d love to do some things on my own as well!). But our dear Lord said,

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5 ESV)

May God bless you with every blessing and give you His rest!

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mt 11:28-29 ESV)

God seems to have lead us to the same spot….with a similar message from a different angel. Your poem was not only beautiful, but a great exhortation as well. Thank you so very much and may you continue to be blessed in such a magnificent way. If you have 10 minutes…..http://disciplesway.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/a-must-read/

I always pray as the Spirit leads me. By the way, could it be possible that I read some pleas for prayer and supplication by you on other Christian blogs before? If so, you may know that I always pray when I read that someone needs prayer.

“The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Phil 4:5-6 ESV)

Susanne,
You wrote:
“Since we cannot succeed in loving unconditionally (agape) without having been empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so, our preaching and evangelism will be as effectual as the power of the Holy Spirit which we have already received. One might also say that our preaching reveals the touchstone God applies to our lives as well…”

Jesus, just before He ascended into heaven, told the disciples that in receiving the Holy Spirit they would give witness of the gospel (preaching if you will), “But you shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 KJ2000).

Earlier before His death in His last earthly prayer to the Father He said, “That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:21 KJ2000). Then we read of the direct result of the Spirit being given to all who were born from above…”These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” (Acts 1:14 KJ2000).
It was from being obedient to the Spirit in the unity and love of Jesus Christ that they had power to preach the words that the Spirit gave unto them. Thus thousands believed in Christ as soon as these men started to preach!!! It was out from this unity of the body they were part of that the world knew that the Father sent Jesus and that this same Jesus was also abiding in them!

Oh, what a travesty it is today that men go off to preacher school and come out with a head full of technics and commentaries to draw from as they build and deliver their dead sermons. Yet, they don’t tarry until the Holy Spirit is upon and in them before they dare to speak in His name. It is no wonder that the visible church is lacking the salt that preserves the world from all this chaos that is rising out of the bottomless pit of hell. By clinging to theology and made technics the visible church has lost its savor and has become something tossed out by those in this world and counted as something to be trodden under the feet of men! WHERE IS THE POWER? Ichabod (the glory is departed) is written all over it, I don’t think that “the gospel of the kingdom”, the true gospel, has been preached from pulpit for many years!

Yes, we ought to wait for the power given by the Holy Spirit before we head out to do some “second-hand evangelism”, springing from an overly intellectual understanding of truth. Before we know THE TRUTH, Jesus Christ, God may use us though in order to distribute His word, but we only receive driblets of truth and do not experience a real change of the heart.

The only thing I want to do is pointing to Christ – again and again. We are only humans and have no power in ourselves to convert sinners to Christ unless the Lord wants to use us for that purpose and pours out His Spirit so that we do what He wants to be done. It is always only His power that convinces a human heart of its forsakenness and hopelessness due to its sinful condition. Finally, repentance is something God gives – whenever He wishes.

All we can do is pray. Everyone can pray. There is no one who could pray better than others.

“For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Mt 7:8 ESV)

The reason that the prayers of some believers are more often, or even always, heard by God does not lie in the fact that they are His favorites (God does not know such a thing) but that He already brought their will in agreement with His own will. There are no longer two “wills” that are contradictory because God and His child that is indwelt by Christ’s Spirit are ONE. Therefore they do not choose what to pray nor how to pray, neither what to do nor how to do it, instead, they sense the Lord nudging them to go in a certain direction.

Nonetheless, if someone prays the same prayer time and again – for years – and the Lord does not hear, we ought to reassess whether our prayer is really biblical or if there might be an obstacle that prevents God from listening to our prayers, which is mentioned in the following Scripture:

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mt 11:24-25 ESV)

Unforgiveness is often the reason God does not hear us. May our Lord help us and cleanse our hearts from all unforgiveness.

Dear Susanne, will you please plead with The Lord to convince my heart of my forsakenness apart from him and give me repentance and great joy in his salvation? At the same time, please pray he will help me not believe my thoughts about myself and that they aren’t true. And will you please let me know how the spirit leads you about my question about going to the word in my current mindset? It’s like my mind constantly screams I’m offended and don’t love the truth and I WANT TO love the truth!

Oh, Susanne!!! What a wonderful Spirit-led and inspired reply you wrote here, dear sister! I totally hear Father’s voice in this. It is a wonderful privilege to be getting to know you through your blog and responses. May the Lord continue to knit together in the Body of Christ all that are His as we are found to be members one of another connected to Him as our Head.
Love in Christ,
Michael

I’ve been asking the Lord to reveal himself to me, if he was really there, and show me what I need to do. And he did through what you have written here. 🙂 I must say I truly feel the Father’s love here on your blog.

Oh, thanks so much for your encouragment as to my writing here. I am so glad that God lets you feel His love and that He answered your prayer for guidance. May God continue to bless you, more and more!

Thank you so very much for this article. I agree with Michael.. and I hear the voice of Yeshua.. That makes me happy, as His voice is the only one I desire to follow. I have been very lax in my prayer life recently.. it seems as though the emotional trials have worn me out. And I am struggling to be still before the Father.. I needed to hear this as I desire to go out into the streets and preach the Gospel.. and the last thing anyone needs to hear is Ruth..This artice was a cool drink of living water.. Love you sis.

Thank you for another God-inspired comment, my sister. Your replies are always a blessing for me, Ruth. It makes me happy that you can hear His voice – wherever and through whomever. As for your thoughts about being lax in your prayer life, you are right regarding emotional trials. There are times when we need the Lord to carry us through because we are too weak (weakened by affliction, that is). As for dropping prayer and other religious activities, maybe you would like to check out my reply to Kathryn on “Some thoughts on our thought life” (response no. 9 – June 29, 2014 at 7:29 pm) which deals with that very question.

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
(John 3:16-17 ESV)

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